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LOTRO: Shades of Temple of Doom

I’m going to try to be a little bit better about sharing my nightly adventures in MMOs in 2014, even if the posts are relatively short. Right now in LOTRO I’m — I think — somewhere around the mid-point of Helm’s Deep. It’s hard to tell, because I haven’t done all of this before and the various quest lines and the epic quest line can be done out of sync with each other (for the most part).

Anyway, my current adventures have taken me to Wood…hall? Woodstove. Woodhaven. Something with “wood” in its title. It’s already one of the more interesting towns in the messed-up, refugee-stricken, pre-invasion land of Rohan due to several factors. First of all, there’s a mead hall full of dead corpses that the townspeople don’t seem to know about. Second of all, there’s corruption and conspiracy everywhere. Third of all, one part of town has enemy Dunlandings (Dunlanders? Dundies?) walking around, even though the area is technically friendly. Toss in a guy hiding out in a basement, and I’m hooked.

I thought it was a little interesting that part of the town is a cliffside mine with carts and whatnot. It felt a bit like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, even if there wasn’t a heart-ripping maniac or captive children around. Because there’s no menial task that LOTRO won’t throw at its “heroes,” I spent a good half hour delivering pickaxes, scooping up ore, and repairing tracks. Frodo just had to walk in a straight line. I envy him.

What I’m not, however, is carefully following the exact nature of the conspiracy. I must’ve been a little tired and wasn’t reading carefully enough, so I’ve missed a few quest texts that have helped to give definition to my adventures in Righting Wrongs. Still, I think I’m getting the general gist of it and it’s allowing me to kill on occasion.

I dinged 94 against my will (dang, you still level so fast in this expansion) and have started to mildly out-level this area’s content. I guess it won’t matter at all when I hit 95 — and I’ll continue to do it all for the sake of story, completion, and various non-XP-related rewards.

Our kin pointed out that Turbine’s free weekly store promotion was a choice of a store-exclusive cosmetic (up to $3 in value), which was one of the more generous promotions that I’ve seen run. Unfortunately, I already pretty much own every store-exclusive item that I wanted. I ended up buying the elven dress because I thought it might be fun to roleplay a Captain who busted up an elven wedding and stole outfits from the dead. But I probably won’t be wearing these much, because they’re the type of dresses that belay LOTRO’s typical sense of modesty. I don’t know what the artist was on, but any time I wear a dress in this game it turns my female’s modest C-cups into raging DDs. Maybe it’s a mithril wonder bra.

The fact that she is still showing as much skin as you’ll ever see on a LOTRO female demonstrates that LOTRO is remarkably modest compared to most video games. I’m glad LOTRO has never succumbed to the “teenage boy” crowd in that regard.